Confessions of an Intrepid Mermaid

We’re very happy to welcome Tonia Marie Harris as our guest today. Tonia resides in south-central Illinois with her husband, three children, and three rescue animals. In addition to writing novels, poetry and essays, she is President of WME Community Works, a non-profit organization that spearheaded the recent development of a grassroots library that serves her village and the surrounding communities. Tonia’s latest work-in-progress is a coming-of-age novel tentatively titled The Education of Sugar Girl. Her work has appeared in Twice Upon A Time, a collection of reimagined fairy tales, Hand/Eye Magazine, Mash Stories, Silver Birch Press, and various anthologies.

I’m a process junkie. When I finish a book I love—everything from Wally Lamb’s She’s Come Undone to Donna Tartt’s The Secret History—I immediately want to know the how and why behind the scenes evolution of the story. What I realized was that my own process would never come together if I didn’t simply dive into the deep end and write the darn story.

I’m swimming. The water mutes the sound of everything but the distant beat of my heart. The water itself is an echo of that rhythm. Voices and the pounding of feet above me are the sounds of another planet. I am a transmitter for something else entirely—the urge to move forward and rise for another breath and plunge back into the water again. Here I have no need for peripheral vision.

This is the recurring dream I had over the summer. This dream of swimming. If you analyzed this dream, you would tell me I’m on a journey through the depths of my subconscious. You would be right.

I am a plotter. I survey the land, measure the depths, and calculate the constellations. I am a pantser. I leave behind the diagnostics to plunge in and discover the wavering depths of story.

Another Word for Forward

This is my first confession: I’ve spent more time in this last year trying to define what kind of writer I am than doing actual writing.

I want to be a plotter. In real life I came to intimately know the power of to-do lists and preparation. Colorful index cards and the phantasm that is Scrivener lured me like a siren song. I spent months planning a dark fairy tale only to discover it wasn’t the story I wanted to write at this moment, not yet. Not the if I had time to write one book what would it be book.

I tried to plot my current manuscript, but each time something stopped me. Depression. My father’s cancer. More depression and all the wins and losses of daily life that can enrich our writing all while draining our power supply.

I tried pantsing. Familiar territory for someone who for years self-identified this way. It was all false starts and a brooding sense of failure. I wondered if my love for writing and this story in particular was a clichéd tale of star-crossed lovers.

What kind of writer was I, and why was I compelled to label myself before I could move forward?

Confession number two: I suck at achieving middle ground. Not because I believe the world revolves in black and white, but because I have a knack for playing the devil’s advocate. I can you give you compelling reasons to be a plotter or a pantser.

The story continued to be an itch while I scratched at every writerly thing but the thing itself. I had to find a way to it. I wanted to breathe it in. As writers you know this feeling. There’s no shaking it off because The Story is part of your cellular structure.

Then some kind of voodoo happened. I went shopping for school supplies for my children and came home with an extra bag of notebooks and pens. Those are mine, I told my family. My precious.

With a notebook I didn’t begin with chapter one, character sketches, or an outline. I knew I simply had to write my way through. David Foster Wallace once said of life, “This is water.” I’ll take this one step further and tell you story is the same. Pen and paper allow me to put aside my conscious and unconscious hang-ups and discover what is in the water, and what about it makes me so thirsty.

Nomenclature and Final Admissions

In the process of writing this essay, the title alone evolved. I began by praising plotting—it is praiseworthy. Then I scrapped all the plotting I mentioned earlier and thought, look, I’m a pantser. I yam what I yam. Pantsing is praiseworthy, too.

Being the process junkie I am, I sifted through various craft books, Youtube videos, and several online articles—many of them here on Writer Unboxed. I wanted to define my process, but more importantly, offer something substantial you the reader could take away and apply to your writing journey.

The only definitive conclusion I can come to is that writers, other than being endlessly fascinating, arrive to the crux of Story by various means. What matters in the end is that we give readers what they want while remaining true to what it is we have to say. As a reader, what I want is transformation, or at the very least, hope of transformation.

Lisa Cron, in her essay here, asks us with her usual intelligent veracity to think outside of pantsing and plotting. To name ourselves something other. I fully support this concept.

However, I couldn’t define myself as a writer until I found myself by getting lost in the ephemeral density that crafting story is.

So now I rise again for a breath before the dive back into story. I want to know that I’m not spinning in circles and check myself against my True North. I have no surety but that I’m using the knowledge I’ve gained, that I’m yet seeking a better way to distant lands. That the waters I’m swimming are the story itself, not ego or pretense of the deluge of questioning that often besets us. I’m beginning, always, to trust my inner Voice. I can promise transformation because I’m willing to accept my own evolution.

I am a mermaid.

What are your hang-ups and obsessions that interfere with the act of writing? Have you found a way to put aside process in the act of discovering the story itself?

Comments

Oh, I SO identify with this essay. I’ve joked that I am a pantser trying to be a plotter. I’ve struggled with this for years. In my professional life, I am a planner. I use a very deliberative process. I plan out every single detail. In my writing life, I am the opposite. At least I was, until I started reading craft of fiction books. Lisa Cron’s latest book has an excellent take on the dangers or pantsing. Now I am getting more serious about plotting, but not just plotting. As Lisa and others point out, a writer needs to work out the central premise of the story, the main characters internal goal and struggle, misbelief and how the character will overcome that misbelief. And the story must have an internal logic. I’ve spent a lot of unproducitive time reaching that point with my current WIP, but at last I’ve found it. I wish you luck with your WIP.

And I wish you luck with yours! When I take a step back, I appreciate all the mistakes I’ve made along the way because I’ve learned from them and the hope is that this makes me a better writer. I’m glad I’m not the only one who’s more of a plotter IRL than in my writing life. Thanks again for reading and commenting. I really appreciate it!

This is spot on. I am a self-described pantser, but I want to be a plotter. In my current WIP I spent a lot of unproductive time because I didn’t work out the protagonist’s internal challenges and goals clearly enough at the outset. Lisa Cron talks about this in her book. The writer must develop the protagonist’s internal goal and struggle, which will be based on her misbelief, before putting a word on the page. I’ve finally figured that out in my WIP but I had to basically re-write the second half of my story. Next time, I will be a plotter. Thanks for this. Timely and well done.

Hello Christopher! I’m glad this post is timely for you. I love your healthy respect for process, and that you shared yours- with its own struggles, misbeliefs, and resolutions- here. I’m a huge fan of Cron’s and noted that in writing my story by longhand that I began where the story really begins- that moment when my protagonist’s misbelief and inner goal are created. I think Lisa does ask us to go outside of the usual “plotting vs. pantsing” to discover this particular crux of the story. It’s amazing how it affects everything, isn’t it? Part of writing is learning how to improve, and it sounds like you’re there. Thank you so much for reading and commenting today.

I, too, can identify with this. For me, if a story is too well mapped ahead of the writing, some stubborn part of me is no longer interested in the journey. Having an inevitable sense of destination from the start is how I manage, regardless of process (which seems more and more to be a weave of things, depending on the day), and that is very much tied in with the protagonist’s specific past.

Hey, Mama T., thank you so much for having me! It’s an honor to share a little of my journey and the evolution of my own process. I completely understand that stubborn streak you referred to, and the mercurial weaving of process. Lisa is a genius. Absolutely.

If one of us were to write and essay titled “The Evolution and Mannerisms of the Modern Writer,” this would likely be the prologue. I have identified myself as panster, plotter, candlestick maker, etc. These are necessary steps. Even if we don’t practice pansting and plotting, we at least understand the concept and why they are important to our forward momentum. For a writer to “arrive,” which here means published, she finally comes to the point where the labels blurr and form into one new organism called Author. There is no single instructional manual which defines the Author. Each of us attempts any number of methods outliined by any number of the Authors who have gone before us. Once we realize that all are correct but none is right for me, we begin to make our own way, the volumes of data swirling in our heads, each mysteriously finding its way into our private method.

There is so much goodness in this comment, and the first line alone, as my grandmother would have said, tickled me pink. I think every Author out there would agree with you. Process doesn’t define who we are as authors, but it does empower our evolution as we reach again and again for telling our story in the most authentic and compelling way possible. It only took six years for me to welcome the notion that there was and is no one way for the writer I am.

Thank you so much for reading and commenting.

You keep swimming as well. I always look forward to your insightful comments on various posts here. I love how we all learn from each other.

You keep swimming as well. (I won’t lie, that phrase played on repeat in my head while I worked on this essay!)

Beautifully written, Tonia. Of course. I expect nothing less from our mermaid.

I’m mostly a pantser, but I plot here and there from time to time. (Side note: I find it amusing that autocorrect wants to change pantser to panther. I’m a panther hunting in a forest of words for plump and scurrying plots!)

We tend, it often seems anyway, to think that the person we are today is the person we’re going to be from here on out. I mean, we make hope we’ll be thinner or more disciplined in the future, but at our core many of us believe we are who we are. You know, I see people say, “I am the sort of person who…” Or something along those lines. I don’t know if that is always true.

I may believe I’m a pantser today, but ten years from now? Maybe plotting more will suit me better. Maybe it never will. I try to find a balance between accepting myself as I believe I am and being open to new ways of being.

What you said about people thinking they’ll be the same person at their core rings true. But I like to think I allow myself room to grow and hope to surprise myself with a different sort of future me, in the best possible way. I believe we can think differently and as someone who often tends to be hard on herself, I hope one day change this frame of mind. I’ve seen people who do change, and I’ve seen others not accept that people can and do change. It’s part of my hope process- that we can improve and nurture what is best in us.

I adore present you and know I will adore your future self as well, plotting or not plotting. And there is this vast middle ground as well as something “other” that isn’t necessarily a plot or not to plot question, I’m sure you agree. I’ll continue to be fascinated by others’ writing process, but I love that so many realize the story is the thing. Writers (and panthers) are such interesting creatures, aren’t they?

I’m delighted you stopped by today and shared your thoughts with your usual charm and wit.

Well, Tonia, I’ve often thought of us as writerly siblings, but this confirms it. Yes, there are elements of plotting that I’ve utilized from the very beginning. Yes, I knew where I was heading with my first story (relatively speaking, anyway). No, I had no idea how to get there. Yes, I pantsed my way through and muddled the path along the way.

I’ve often described my process with the metaphor of excavation. I’ve always been amazed at the crystalline clarity in which so many of my scenes have appeared to me. It’s the stuff between that leads to problems. So your undersea analogy actually works better than excavation. Well, maybe a combo of the two. It’s like I’m swimming along and coming across undersea pods with a scene that plays out like a movie. You know, like those Gungan bubble cities on Naboo. But when I sit to string the pathway between them, the water’s too murky for the reader. So my process has been like becoming a stronger swimmer/guide – providing safe immersion and a clear pathway from Gunga pod to Gunga pod. I guess I had to earn my Jedi breather. [Disclaimer: Jar Jar Binks was in no way involved in this comment, and has nothing to do with either the commenter’s nor the essayist’s undersea journey.]

Seriously, I’ve noticed that almost everyone’s process involves some variation on the combo you describe. Even the purest plotters have to get their pants wet by wading into the unknown murk from time to time. What I also know is that none of it is wasted effort, that it cumulatively builds us into the writers/swimmers we become.

Fantastic essay, Tonia! (You’d never know it was your first here – you’re like an old pro right out of the gate!) Thanks for swimming alongside me, my writerly sib.

I love what you said about becoming a better swimmer/guide for our readers and how some scenes play out like movies- those shimmering Gungan bubble cities are such a gift when they happen and I’m greedy about getting those down on paper when I happen across them. I believe we’re all some hybrid of the two as well.

You are my brother from another mother (as my kids say) and I’m grateful to not only be a member of your tribe, but that there’s someone out there who catches what I throw out. :)

Thank you, Vaughn. Your support is immeasurable in my eyes. The honor of sharing my thoughts today feels similar to that moment when Yoda gives his little sage nod of approval.

Tonia, I enjoyed your essay so very much. I need to know my story enough before putting it down on paper. Along the way it can change, as the characters become more themselves. I’m loving Story Genius because it fits how I write, but with more direction.

And what is it with pen and paper? Every school year, I buy some notebooks for myself too, and this is where I am most honest. And because too much raw honesty can hurt, I throw all these away.

Wishing you all the best with your writing as you struggle with the other aspects of your life. Cancer sucks. And Katherine Patterson said it best when she wrote: “As I look back on what I have written, I can see that the very persons who have taken away my time are those who have given me something to say.”

Vijaya- thank you so much for reading, commenting, and your support. I love the quote you shared because I’m finding it to be so true in terms of what life doesn’t take away, but instead gives back to our writing and our truths.

Story Genius changed the way I look at writing and even on days when the current is swift, I’m guided by Lisa’s principles- those stars in the sky I spoke of, along with so much I’ve learned along the way from our other WU gurus.

Oh pen and paper. I love it and agree that it leads to a scalding honesty. That honesty, for me, has been helpful in finding my Voice and what it is I want to say with story. But with surety I know that there are many things I’m writing by hand won’t find its way into the final, or even the second, draft. What I do know is that I’m creating a map and am “plotting” my true north.

I am loving this candid discussion on process in all its varieties. Again, thank you!

Tonia, this line spoke to me: “…writers…arrive to the crux of Story by various means. What matters in the end is that we give readers what they want while remaining true to what it is we have to say.” I’m revising my second novel and has been a panster from the get go, all the while feeling guilty and somehow “less than” for not being a plotter with a clear cut path before me from the start. I think I’ve discovered that some hybrid of the two approaches may work best for novel #3. Or at least trim the time it takes to get to THE END. Thanks for this!

Yes! I understand that guilt all too well, which is part of why I was driven to try plotting. I’m glad I did. While it didn’t necessarily work for me, I did learn a great deal and I’m confident it only enhanced my abilities and taught me new skills- put more tools in the toolbox.

The hybrid model seems to work best for me and, like you, I’m hopeful this will cut down the revision and editing after I finish this draft, and perhaps the next. This draft by longhand I lovingly refer to as my “zero draft”. Perhaps it is its own sort of outline, and as I mentioned, I began before the story begins, but where my main character’s misconceptions and the like are conceived.

Thank you for reading and commenting. You are one whose comments I look forward to reading at WU. :)

I once heard a famous author who had published dozens of books speak. She said something along the lines of how she couldn’t share her process, because she didn’t know how she wrote — every book was a new writing experience. At the time I didn’t believe her, but now I think that’s true. Every story I’ve told has required its own balance between pantsing and plotting, and I’ve taken something new away with each one.

Like you, I don’t know that I would have believed the author only two years ago. I remember sitting in on one of Meg Rosoff’s workshops at the first UnCon and part of me, while I adored her and absorbed every word she said, wished she could give me some comprehensive formula. You know, a kind of connect the dots presentation on how to make magic happen. Little did I know she truly was.

Now that I do have a few (trunk) novels under my belt, I understand what you do- that each book requires its own balance.

I’m all over the place with process–I’ve been a planner and a pantser and something in between. Though I haven’t resolved it yet, concluding a successful process will require first that I learn to tame my idea brainstorms. Even on one novel my mind will take me in a thousand directions–I even start going back in time from the story’s start figuring out things that happened pre-story and the curiosity leads me on an endless chase. Sometimes my mind is even chasing post story ideas.

And every human being is a complex person in their own right. Sure I can say they have *a* goal or motivation, but reality is, we usually have several. That leads to a lot of wrestling with your characters–at least for me.

I honestly believe most writers feel the way you do, and I’m certainly among them. “Wrestling” is another apt metaphor the thing we do on the page, and in our heads, with Story.

I recently taught my first writing workshop and this very subject came up. I found myself talking about how we do some of our most creative work inside of a few restraints and realized I needed to heed my own advice. Those restraints should be flexible, of course (we are at the forum for “Unboxed” here, lol), and allow for flexibility. But like children, we do operate best with a few rules and boundaries. It’s something I’m still thinking about because I love exploring and can get lost in my story world and it’s hard, and perhaps unnecessary in some ways, to let go of our characters after we type The End. As you noted, our characters are human, and like us, complex. Using the swimming analogy, I would say, as CG said above, keep swimming. Sometimes those treasures are buried deep beneath the tides.

Have you tried Cron’s books- Wired for Story or Story Genius yet? If you couldn’t tell, I’m a fan. Cron’s advice has been a way for me to ask the right questions of my characters.

Thank you so much for commenting. I hope you know you’re not alone in your wrestling. :)

I love this beautiful post. And I can identify with the journey. Sometimes you just have to sift through all the writerly advice out there, take what you need to sustain you, and forage on to the journey of you. I’ve done that, and I love your mermaid analogy. I’ve spent days listening to the voices of muses, and had nightmares where I’ve been convinced that their lovely chatter was a sirens song luring me too deep. It’s only then we learn we can swim. Blessed be your journey, Tonia.

Thank you so much and I’m so happy my essay resonates with you. Oh, that siren song- it’s dangerous yet such a delightful test in its way of our bravery and willingness to explore unchartered territory.

Blessed be your journey as well, my friend. Such a delight to be part of your tribe.

“Then some kind of voodoo happened. I went shopping for school supplies for my children and came home with an extra bag of notebooks and pens. Those are mine, I told my family. My precious.”

This exact thing happend to me. I then went a step further and bought a box to put them all in. Then I added a sketch pad, a pencil and one of those big pink erasers. Then a huge box of 60 markers. The other day I cut a bunch of phrases and images from magazines and tossed them in too. So now whatever way the story comes to me, I just add it to “The Box.” Sometimes I question my weirdness, but then I’m like “Hey, whatever, JK Rowling did it.” And now, a mermaid. Thanks for sharing.

Oh I do like you! Another aspect of writing by hand that I enjoy is that it allows me to doodle and jot notes, quotes, and little thoughts and inspirations in the margins along the way. I don’t have a box, but now I might have to pick one up.

I once watched, being the admitted process junkie I am, an interview with Rowling in which she opened up her own box of delights with all the various pages, pictures, sketches, and goodies. She had them strewn all around her and the look on her face alone was priceless. I could tell that going through all those fantastical bits pulled her right back into the world she created.

Voodoo, magic, siren song- not weird at all. Unless we just sit back and embrace our oddness. We are writers, after all. Lured into new realms of creation.

Thank you so much for this comment! It’s good to know that the next time I’m drooling in the office supply aisle that I’m not the only one with this predilection.

I have never read a book of writing advice, taken a class, or attended a seminar. (I am reading Story Genius now, just got my copy. Her perspective is the only one I’ve seen like my own. a bit.) I am neither a pantser nor a plotter, I am a spinner. I start with a character, always a character, unnamed, unformed, unshaped, a piece of my soul that I ripped out and threw onto a page. a Minimum of that evil monstrosity, ‘characterization’. Everything my character has is already inside it, I just need to tease it and test it to find what that is. I don’t know the point or have a plot, just the guy. I start with a problem, or a position, or a setting, whatever my original story idea was, where that blob of soul has been put and I wait to see what it does. What parts of that problem or setting matter to my little blob? What parts does it care about, given what it’s trying to do? From the importance of these things I can deduce where he came from and where he’s going, and I cast out lines in those directions. I put more blobs down as they are needed, other characters, spinning themselves out according to their own internal logic until their logic meets some other blob’s logic and now I have to see how they react to each other. My stories do not have a single protagonist with a single problem, but a group of people, each with their own problems, interweaving and tangling with each other as their problems grow together as well. No one character’s plotline is sufficient to resolve the amalgam of issues, and all are necessary. Sometimes I have to wait, days, weeks, until my characters start to talk to me. I have an idea for the ending, usually based on the beginning, and that idea gives me new ideas for new places and problems. Very rarely does my ending mean the same thing when we get there as it did when I thought of it. Sometimes even I don’t know what it means until long after I’ve written it, and then I have a lightbulb moment two weeks later. Thank God this isn’t on paper.

There are a host of writers that came to mind reading your comment, King, Rowling, George RR Martin being among them. I like the metaphor you used- spinner. I write for an artisan magazine sometimes and often write about weavers of various sorts around the world and am fascinated by this process. The warp and weft of artistry- and the commitment, grace, and combination of skills that are required.

Keep spinning stories with such confidence and I look forward to the tapestry you will share with readers. Thank you for reading and commenting!

I’m not sure what spinning metaphor I had in mind, the threads are going from the inside to the outside. Maybe a spider weaving? Or pulling apart a tangled ball to find the internal order? Lots of lines crossing, cabling, etc. I have several novels and short stories out already. very offbeat fantasy, SF, and paranormal. (What category are Santa’s elves in?) None with a major press, though. I hope you will check some of them out someday.

“The only definitive conclusion I can come to is that writers, other than being endlessly fascinating, arrive to the crux of Story by various means. What matters in the end is that we give readers what they want while remaining true to what it is we have to say. As a reader, what I want is transformation, or at the very least, hope of transformation.”

When I started writing fiction many moons ago, we were not defined by particular labels of our process, so that paragraph of yours really resonates. We are writers. Period.

And I could also relate to the depression and the struggles with life challenges that bring us to our knees. I have had a really rough time in the past three years with those life challenges, and that has severely affected my writing. What I have done to keep those things from completely burying the creative spirit is to write when I can and not get too discouraged when I cannot. I have also found that focusing on some other creative endeavors at least once a week helps lift that feeling of gloom. We cannot write in the darkness.

Isn’t it funny how we’ve come to these labels? I think they’re useful, as long as we don’t use them for divisiveness, or get hung up on what type of writer we are when it’s the writing and story that matters.

There’s a lot of wisdom and compassion in your comment that I really appreciate.

At the beginning of the year, I worked through Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way and one of the biggest and most helpful things I took away was the concept of “filling our wells”. It’s been one of those years, but yes, exploring other ways to be creative was really helpful for me. I just attended a painting class yesterday and it was restorative beyond measure. We need those things, and we need sometimes to simply rest as well.